Jewish Museum Lighting Jewish Museum of San Francisco from ...€¦ · Jewish Museum of San...

Jewish Museum

44 May - June 2010 Lighting India

The new home of the Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco is located in the heart of downtown Yerba Buena arts district. Designed by the renowned architect Daniel Libeskind, and his first commission in the United States, the Museum opened in its new venue on June 8, 2008. The building incorporates the adaptive reuse of the landmark Willis Polk 1907 Jesse Street Power Substation as its foundation. Retaining the historic brick façade and many elements of the original building, Libeskind masterfully merged the old architecture with the new. The Architect was inspired by the Hebrew phrase l’chaim (to life), and incorporated the two Hebrew letters of chai, the chet and the yud, as part of the form of the Museum. The shape of the chet forms the exhibition and educational spaces and the yud, a gallery space used for sound installations, is the now famous oxidized blue steel cube on the walkway beside the Museum.

Lighting for the Contemporary

Jewish Museumfrom Architecture to Exhibition

of San Francisco

Lighting for the Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco-Final.indd 44Lighting for the Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco-Final.indd 44 6/23/2010 3:06:43 PM6/23/2010 3:06:43 PM

Jewish Museum

45May - June 2010Lighting India

Museum ExteriorIn the Beginning: Artists Respond to GenesisPhotographer: Bitter & Bredt


Jewish Museum


Auerbach Glasow French became involved with the project in July 1998 during the Schematic Design Phase. We

were tasked with designing the lighting for the interior public spaces and administrative offi ces and the schematic lighting design for the exterior. The program for the 63,000 square foot Museum is expansive: contemporary and historic art exhibitions, fi lm, music, live performances, events, parties, education and outreach programs for the broader community, as well as the administrative and curatorial spaces for the Museum staff . The four event spaces were designed to accommodate most any of these events and the three art galleries needed to meet stringent exhibition requirements to accommodate traveling shows, all within the non-traditional architectural vernacular of the Libeskind building. To accommodate these challenges, the lighting needed to be extremely fl exible, providing excellent quality of light while integrating with the architecture.

We worked closely with the design team: Studio Daniel Libeskind, design architect, WRNS Studio, the architect of record, KPM Consulting, LLC, the construction managers, and Connie Wolf, Director and CEO of the Museum, Connie had a hands-on, wholly immersive approach to the project and we had many lighting discussions about aesthetics and the needs of the Museum. We understood the importance of balancing the aesthetics of the building with the lighting system requirements of a world-class museum and all the technical gear that goes along with it. We wanted to integrate the lighting with the architectural form to convey the geometry of the space without losing the space amidst a sea of equipment. We also wanted to express the open volumes and the idea of space that we envisioned when we fi rst met with Daniel Libeskind. We used linear forms to complement the lines of the building. This worked well with the lighting

track in the exhibition areas and linear fl uorescent fi ttings for general lighting throughout the building. When possible we used the architecture to obscure or incorporate the lighting, such as the use of the trusswork in the historic spaces.

The complexity of the building necessitated extensive model work because it was the best way to understand the geometry of the spaces. With sloping and angled walls the architecture of the fl oor was not the architecture of the ceiling. Our design phase project manager, Susan Porter, made frequent trips to the WRNS offi ces to check the lighting design against the model. She also built her own in-house model for the more diffi cult spaces such as the Yud Gallery. During the construction phase the coordination continued on site. Our construction phase project manager, E. Sara McBarnette, spent considerable time coordinating mounting details with the architects and contractors.

Galleries and Event SpacesAs you walk through the historic

brick façade of the Contemporary Jewish Museum and into the dramatic 2,500

square foot grand lobby, architecture from the turn of the twentieth century meets architecture of the new millennium. Many of the original historic features in the lobby, including the

Koshland GalleryPhotographer: Bitter & Bredt:In the Beginning: Artists Respond to Genesis

Koret-Taube Grand LobbyPhotographer: Bruce Damonte - Courtesy of the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco


Jewish Museum


façade, trusses, skylights and crane, exist alongside the new dynamic architecture of Daniel Libeskind. The lighting approach for the Koret-Taube Grand Lobby employs a multi-level strategy

to address the many functions of the space: an introduction to the Museum, an area where historic meets new, and an event space. Using the historic truss as a mounting location, contemporary theatrical-style fi ttings provide general lighting for the lobby as well as specialty display lighting. Along the same truss, fl uorescent uplights illuminate the historic ceiling and skylights, and suspended pendant lights recall the historic 1907 substation.

The most dramatic architectural and lighting element in the lobby is the PaRDes wall, an architectural installation incorporating an abstract representation of a Hebrew acronym. Each letter is outlined in light with linear fl uorescent fi ttings integrated into the wall design.

Various lighting elements are used to create diff erent looks at diff erent times of the day. When daylight fi lls the space, only the registration desk, café and PaRDes wall are illuminated. General and display lighting, ceiling uplighting and the pendant lights are added later in the day as daylight recedes. The Museum also has a dynamic presence at night when only the PaRDes wall is illuminated. It is visible through the

windows of the historic façade and calls out to passersby.

The 2,700 square-foot Sala Webb Education Center includes an activity room, the Ronald and Anita Wornick Boardroom and a common area. The common area encompasses a variety of lighting looks to suit the diff erent uses of the space such as educational or art events, conferences or pre-event receptions. Perimeter fl uorescent ceiling coves, adjustable accent lights for display and dimmable fl uorescent downlights can be used alone or in combination to support the diff erent events. The display vitrine, a center piece of the area, incorporates low voltage rail lighting and LED linear uplighting. The individual rooms integrate recessed linear fl uorescent fi ttings into a linear ceiling design reminiscent of many of the linear lighting motifs throughout the building. Each room has independent preset dimming controls, while the control of the common area is connected to the central dimming system.

The second fl oor Koshland Gallery incorporates some of the old with the new architecture as in the grand lobby. Part of the gallery retains the ceiling trusses and skylights from the historic power substation while the other part of the gallery is a new architectural footprint with sloping walls and a high ceiling. The gallery lighting system is comprised of lighting track suspended from the ceiling and recessed into the sloping soffi t and architectural beams. On the historic side of the gallery, the track is mounted to the underside of the historic trusses. The orientation of the track emphasizes the length of the gallery and accommodates fl exible, dense art displays. Each side of the gallery has fl uorescent uplights mounted atop the trusses or beams accenting the high ceilings of the new architecture and the historic ceiling of the old building.

The fi rst fl oor Roselyne and Richard Swig/Swig and Dinner Families Gallery is a rectilinear space with an exposed,

Main StaircasePhotographer: Bitter & Bredt - Courtesy of the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco

Roselyne and Richard Swig/Swig and Dinner Families GalleryThe New Yorker to Shrek: The Art of William Steig

Photographer: Bitter & Bredt- Courtesy of the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco


Jewish Museum


unfi nished ceiling. The lighting system is comprised of parallel lengths of lighting track which connect to a perimeter track confi guration. The perimeter track follows the wall layout of the gallery. Large windows across one end of the gallery are carefully fi ltered to control visible and ultra violet light to allow for art display.

The dramatic 2,200-square-foot Stephen and Maribelle Leavitt “Yud” Gallery has a soaring 65-foot ceiling with 36 skylights. Suspended lengths of extruded aluminum channel follow the shape of the room and contain lighting track incorporated into the bottom of the channel to light exhibitions and events, and concealed fl uorescent uplights in the top of the channel to illuminate the high volume of the space. The 2-circuit lighting track is zoned so that the lighting for a presentation can be controlled separately from exhibition or event lighting, and the uplighting is controlled separately from downlighting.

The 3,300-square-foot Richard and Rhoda Goldman Hall is a fl exible space, providing the Museum with a fl at fl oor venue for dinners and meetings, as well as a media screening facility with stadium seating for 235 attendees. Auerbach Pollock Friedlander, our theatre consulting and design group, designed a telescopic seating system that requires little more than thirty minutes to set up. This allows the room to be converted from an open plan meeting space to a fi xed seating environment suited to media presentations and arts events for smaller audiences.

The architectural and theatrical lighting system designed by Auerbach Glasow French had to accommodate the versatile requirements of the space and fi t within the dynamic irregular linear ceiling design which was inspired by a medieval map of the roads to Jerusalem. Adjustable downlights in a variety of wattages and light distribution patterns light the space in its multitude of confi gurations: fl at fl oor, tiered theatrical

seating, table seating, with side or front room orientation. There are distributed circuits and mounting locations throughout the ceiling for special events lighting and theatrical rental lighting to accommodate the changing uses of the room.

Control and FlexibilityA central dimming system was

critical for the four event spaces: the Grand Lobby, the Education Center, the Yud Gallery and the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Hall. The system would provide easy access for light level changes and quick reconfi guration of the lighting look. We talked extensively about the dimming system and the requirements of the Museum. The Museum wanted a system that was easy and intuitive to use, preprogrammed, yet easily reprogrammed, completely automatic, but with override capability, and the ability to manually run live events. We needed what appeared to be a simple system on the outside with sophisticated technology on the inside to support all the diff erent functions.

After considerable discussion, we designed a customized hybrid control

system. The backbone of the system was a portable console for each event space which we designed from standard components. The console consists of an 8 preset pushbutton station to recall

Sala Webb Education CentrePhotographer: Bruce Damonte Courtesy of the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco

Stephen and Maribelle Leavitt “Yud” GalleryPhotographer: Mark Darley - Courtesy of the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco


Jewish Museum


diff erent lighting scenes and manual slider controls from which you can run the lighting for live events. The slider controls can also re-program the lighting levels for the preset scenes.

The initial set up of the system and fade times of the presets were done with a laptop computer, but then the laptop was retired to the dimmer room where it runs the automatic time clock functions of the presets.

During normal operation the lighting presets are automatically time clock activated and change throughout the day: for pre-opening, opening, afternoon, evening, after hours and late night. Every space has a wall mounted preset pushbutton station for manual override of the timed presets. When live operation or re-programming of the presets is required, the portable console is used. With this hands-on approach to events and re-programming of presets, anyone can learn this system within minutes. The system is usable and transparent, as easy as pushing a button or running up a slider.

In The Beginning and ChagallIn January 2008, Auerbach Glasow

French was asked to light the inaugural exhibition. Director and CEO, Connie Wolf, wanted to insure that the lighting for the exhibition was the best it could be and that her staff was properly

introduced to the lighting system. Nothing is more satisfying to a lighting designer than to use his/her own design. Now we had the opportunity to demonstrate that the types and quantities of fi ttings, track and lamps we specifi ed and laid out would work for the Museum. We could prove our design and nothing less than beautiful exhibition lighting would suffi ce.

The Museum does not have a permanent collection; it mounts contemporary exhibitions and hosts travelling exhibitions and programs. For the inaugural exhibition the Museum commissioned seven artists for In the Beginning: Artists Respond to Genesis, which was exhibited in the Koshland Gallery. In addition to the contemporary works, historic artifacts were on display, including illuminated manuscripts from the Medieval and Renaissance periods that require very low light levels. An exhibition of works by William Steig was displayed in the Roselyne and Richard Swig /Swig and Dinner Families Gallery. Organized by The Jewish Museum in New York City, From The New Yorker to Shrek: The Art of William Steig required exacting exhibition lighting requirements. We knew that the courier from the Jewish Museum in New York City would not release the art until we proved that the light levels were appropriate.

We began our exhibition lighting design with a kick-off meeting with the Museum staff . They gave us documentation, explained the exhibitions and then walked through the exhibition spaces with us. We in turn explained the lighting systems to them. It was the start of a close, productive and enjoyable working relationship. For the inaugural exhibitions temporary walls were designed, permitted through the City and installed in both galleries. This was the fi rst test of the adaptability of the lighting system. Was there enough track and was it correctly located to light all the new wall locations? With the addition of one 8’ length of track in the

Ronald and Anita Wornick Board RoomPhotographer: Bruce Damonte - Courtesy of the Contemporary

Jewish Museum, San Francisco

Koret-Taube Grand LobbyPhotographer: Mark Darley - Courtesy of the Contemporary

Jewish Museum, San Francisco.


Jewish Museum


Koshland Gallery, the system worked eff ortlessly.

Our next challenge was to confi rm that we had suffi cient quantity and the right types of track light fi ttings for the exhibitions. We previously specifi ed the fi tting types and quantities as a baseline of equipment for the Museum. Well before the opening exhibitions were conceived and based upon prior museum projects, we had estimated a need for approximately 630 exhibition lighting fi ttings. After seeing the exhibitions we did preliminary lighting layouts for all the galleries to establish our fi tting and lamp counts. Our ceiling and track heights ranged from 12’ to 19’. We ended up using predominantly 2 tungsten halogen lamp types: 35 watt low voltage PAR36 spots, and 60 watt PAR 38 fl oods. Although we had a dimming system in the event areas, in the galleries we used aluminum screen to reduce the light level – a mechanical dimming technique used to fi ne tune light level and not change the color temperature of the light. Large rolls of aluminum screen were purchased and the Museum staff cut 1,000 screens for us, we supplemented the quantity with additional cutting.

Working with a glove on one hand and a light meter in the other, we set about hanging and focusing the show. In the Steig exhibition the light level could not exceed 70 lux, and 50 lux was preferred. We aimed for approximately 50 lux which worked well and gave a good feel to the space. We quickly discerned how many screens were needed for each lamp type to achieve the desired footcandle level. Most fi ttings required between 2 to 4 screens each.

The Roselyne and Richard Swig/Swig and Dinner Families Gallery, which housed the Steig exhibition, features large west-facing windows at one end of the space. The curators anticipated that the daylight would require mitigation for the art and built a large temporary wall blocking most of the daylight.

However, the allowed light levels for the exhibition were low, and the daylight from the windows crept over the top of the temporary wall, so the light level from the daylight provided the maximum acceptable light level for the art near the window end of the gallery. This meant that we could not provide any electric lighting for those art pieces. We recommended placing light reduction fi lm over the windows to cut out 60% of the visible light. This did the trick without compromising the clarity of the windows, and we were able to provide electric light to a level of approximately 30 lux which worked at night, and which combined with the fi ltered daylight brought the level up to approximately 60 lux during the day, within our targeted level.

Unlike the singular light level for the Steig exhibition, the In the Beginning exhibition in the Koshland Gallery had a wide range of lighting requirements. The exhibits ranged from a contemporary metal sculpture, which had no light level requirements, to a medieval Bible for which we could not exceed 30 lux. There were also two exhibits that were primarily video projection and one exhibit that was comprised of multiple video screens of changing images, all which needed very little to no light. The skylights in the gallery were blacked out so we had total control over the lighting in each exhibit. At the end of the gallery, there is an area which overlooks the daylit lobby. The art in this area did not contain light sensitive materials and so the higher light level was acceptable.

The greatest challenge in this gallery was to balance the light level between exhibits so when the viewer transitioned from lower to higher light levels the change was not distracting. We accomplished this by keeping the general light level low, so “high” light level areas were high only in contrast to the low light level areas, and by slowly increasing the light level as you moved toward the daylight. The majority of the exhibition had light levels in the 50-70 lux range, with a low of 30 lux and a high of 200 lux toward the daylight. The technique worked well and the exhibition began in a subdued environment with the light increasing in intensity as you moved through the space and toward the daylight.

In the Beginning was a fi tting start for a wonderful new building and a venerable San Francisco institution. In January 2009 we were again asked to light a special exhibition: Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theatre. The exhibition examined the fl ourishing of Soviet Jewish theatre from the 1920’s through the 1940s, refl ecting Russian folk art and the artistic movements of the period. The exhibition was especially poignant for me because of my training in the theatre. It was an honor and a pleasure to light the inaugural and the Chagall exhibitions. It’s been 12 years since we began our work with the Contemporary Jewish Museum and we are delighted to see them basking in the light of a successful new home and innovative exhibitions. �

Patricia Glasow, IESNA, LC, IALD, is a Principal at Auerbach Glasow French. Ms. Glasow was trained as a theatrical lighting designer and designed for WED Enterprises, a division of Walt Disney Productions, before she joined Auerbach in 1984. She has been involved in the design and management of hundreds of lighting projects in North America, Asia and Europe. Project work includes designs for Pixar Animation Studios, Petronas Discov-ery Centre, the 21,000-seat LDS Conference Center, Lotte Hotel in Seoul and the Shanghai Grand Theatre. Glasow holds a B.A. in Theatre Arts from U.C.L.A. Patricia Glasow


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